Food prep for the recipe of the day begins right after morning coffee. We wash, trim, chop, dice, measure, and pour recipe ingredients into matching camera-friendly containers.
Tables are set up beside the RV for the food demonstration and sound equipment. Extension cords come out. Cables snake across the sound table. Equipment is placed in just the right position and tested. “Test. Test. Test. Can you hear me now?”
We check batteries in the two cameras before placing the cameras on tripods. Designated cameras are strategically positioned for close-up and distance shots. Tripods are secured so we can’t possibly kick them over.
A hurried, last look at hair and make-up leads to important touch ups here and there. Red jackets replace our casual duds.
Utensils, barbecue, and recipe ingredients are set out on the demonstration table, in the order of use so that we can easily follow the recipe, and get it right. We review the ingredients to be sure we can name each one properly on camera.
We hook microphones over our ears, slip cords down through our jackets. We check batteries for the mics, one more time.
“Test. Test. Test.”
Time is taken for a last minute laugh as we work ourselves up to “high energy.”
All is perfect. We pause, take a breath, and start.
“Just a minute.”
We stop to check the cameras one more time, to be sure they are working. We start again.
Bees find the food on the table. A wind rustles the tablecloth. A golf cart rumbles by and a dog barks, but we keep on going, quite oblivious to everything around us except the aroma of the beef kebobs cooking on the grill.
Take one is completed.
“What do you think?” “Do we need another take?”
We carry cameras into the RV to download onto the computer. There are no serious bloopers to be seen. Nothing that can’t be fixed by editing. It’s a wrap!
It’s time for us to set aside our hats as food stylists, set designers, make-up and wardrobe people, sound and camera technicians, video editors, clean-up crew, and performers, to take a breath and sample the dish. And it’s delicious.
We’re exhilerated, excited, and exhausted, all at the same time.
We post the video online.
And we wait for comments. When we see “I love your cooking videos, it’s like you are in my back yard,” “O.K. That gives us our morning chuckle-you two are too funny-and the beef kebobs look yummy,” “Thanks, I’m going to try the recipe,” and “I like having a visit with you AND a recipe, too” …we are energized again.